Can you explain religion without acknowledging the importance of actual religious experience?
I do think religious experience has played an important part in religion. I think the Apostle Paul felt genuinely inspired. I myself have had profound experiences that could be characterized as religious. I certainly had some when I was young and a believing Christian. And I’ve had some since then. I did a one-week silent meditation retreat and had very profound experiences. What kinds of experiences? As the week wore on, the walls between me and other people and the rest of reality broke down a little. I became much less judgmental. I remember at one point looking at a weed and thinking, I can’t believe I’ve been killing weeds because they’re as pretty as anything else. Who put this label on weeds? And that’s just a metaphor for what was changing in my consciousness. It was completely profound by the end of the week. Of course, a week later it wore off and I was a jerk again. But I think it was a movement toward moral truth. The truth is that I’m not special, and you’re not special. T
